Star Wars: The Last Jedi Tracking Similar To Force Awakens

Lucasfilm is poised to be very happy with Star Wars: The Last Jedi‘s opening weekend based on the latest tracking. When Disney relaunched Star Wars, the swell of excitement in seeing the beloved franchise return guaranteed Star Wars: The Force Awakens would be a big hit. Some were quick to predict The Force Awakens as the future highest grossing movie ever, and even though it fell short of that huge accomplishment (at least, in terms of worldwide earnings), it did go down as the biggest opening weekend domestically.

Thanks to the record-breaking success of The Force Awakens, there has been plenty of pressure on The Last Jedi to stay in a similar ballpark to its predecessor. The Force Awakens surpassed early tracking of a $185-$210 million opening, and the first numbers from official tracking have The Last Jedi right in the middle.

Deadline revealed the latest tracking numbers for The Last Jedi that have the film earning $200 million opening weekend. This number comes with extra data that The Last Jedi is staying close or has surpassed The Force Awakens in key points. The Last Jedi has an unaided awareness number of 35 (down from TFA‘s 36), but its first choice number of 23 and definite interest number of 65 are higher than its predecessor’s 22 and 60 numbers respectively. With a few more weeks left and a likely positive push from reviews, it stands to reason these figures – and the opening weekend projections – will only increase.

It should come as no surprise that The Last Jedi is performing strong in every aspect of tracking data. The Rian Johnson directed episode has maintained very high buzz and has avoided negativity of almost any kind. This tracking is actually a bit lower than the previous early projections that had a $215M opening, but again, there is plenty of time for actual tracking to balloon in the next few weeks.

If The Last Jedi does at least cross $200M in its opening weekend, it will be the fourth movie ever to open that high – but the second Star Wars film in two years to do so. It would also easily surpass Rogue One: A Star Wars Story‘s $155M opening, which is hardly a surprise. The press tour for The Last Jedi recently kicked off and Disney is continuing to pump out new TV spots to continue to keep The Last Jedi in the front of everyone’s mind. If it can do that while garnering (hopefully) positive reactions and getting a high Rotten Tomatoes rating in the process, there is no reason for The Last Jedi‘s tracking not to continue to climb prior to its release.